1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a control method of a host device, an image forming system, an image forming apparatus, and a host device employing the same, and more particularly, to a control method of a host device that avoids an error part of an image forming apparatus through a user interface unit to use the image forming apparatus, an image forming system, an image forming apparatus, and a host device employing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an image forming apparatus is connected to a host device through a network (such as a local area network (LAN)), and operates according to a control command of the host device. Examples of the image forming apparatus include a printer, a scanner, a photocopier, a facsimile, and a multi-function device. An electrophotographic image forming apparatus will be described as an example of the image forming apparatus. Moreover, examples of the host device include a general-purpose host computer such as a personal computer or a laptop computer. The host device commands the image forming apparatus through a printer driver to print documents, set a printing environment, etc.
The electrophotographic image forming apparatus forms an image on a print medium (such as paper or a transparency) supplied by a paper feeding cassette thorough charging, exposing, developing, transferring, and fusing processes. With the recent trend of higher performance, higher capacity, and multiple operations, a configuration of image forming apparatuses is gradually becoming more complicated. The complicated configuration of the image forming apparatus results in potential errors and failures. For example, if a pickup roller of one of a plurality of print medium feeding cassettes in a network image forming apparatus is worn, an error may occur due to a print medium jam.
If a user does not recognize the worn pickup roller and continues to use the print medium feeding cassette having the worn pickup roller, the print medium jam occurs and a print operation of the image forming apparatus is suspended. Here, if a user simply removes the jammed print medium and executes the print job again, the jam may occur again. Accordingly, a user who does not recognize the cause of the error may be inconvenienced when using the image forming apparatus. Thus, there is a need for a method to notify a user, who desires to use a print medium feeding cassette causing repetitive jams, of an error history before a print operation so as to avoid using the concerned print medium feeding cassette.